Collective dynamics of
small-world networks
Duncan J. Watts* & Steven H. Strogatz
Department of Theoretical and Applied Mechanics, Kimball Hall,
Cornell University, Ithaca, New York 14853, USA
.........................................................................................................................
Acknowledgements. This work was supported by NASAs Planetary Geology and Geophysics Program.
Correspondence and requests for materials should be addressed to E.A. (e-mail: asphaug@earthsci.ucsc.
edu).
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* Present address: Paul F. Lazarsfeld Center for the Social Sciences, Columbia University, 812 SIPA
Building, 420 W118 St, New York, New York 10027, USA.
letters to nature
removed from a clustered neighbourhood to make a short cut has, at
most, a linear effect on C; hence C(p) remains practically unchanged
for small p even though L(p) drops rapidly. The important implication here is that at the local level (as reflected by C(p)), the transition
to a small world is almost undetectable. To check the robustness of
these results, we have tested many different types of initial regular
graphs, as well as different algorithms for random rewiring, and all
give qualitatively similar results. The only requirement is that the
rewired edges must typically connect vertices that would otherwise
be much farther apart than Lrandom.
The idealized construction above reveals the key role of short
cuts. It suggests that the small-world phenomenon might be
common in sparse networks with many vertices, as even a tiny
fraction of short cuts would suffice. To test this idea, we have
computed L and C for the collaboration graph of actors in feature
films (generated from data available at http://us.imdb.com), the
electrical power grid of the western United States, and the neural
network of the nematode worm C. elegans17. All three graphs are of
scientific interest. The graph of film actors is a surrogate for a social
network18, with the advantage of being much more easily specified.
It is also akin to the graph of mathematical collaborations centred,
traditionally, on P. Erdos (partial data available at http://
www.acs.oakland.edu/,grossman/erdoshp.html). The graph of
the power grid is relevant to the efficiency and robustness of
power networks19. And C. elegans is the sole example of a completely
mapped neural network.
Table 1 shows that all three graphs are small-world networks.
These examples were not hand-picked; they were chosen because of
their inherent interest and because complete wiring diagrams were
available. Thus the small-world phenomenon is not merely a
curiosity of social networks13,14 nor an artefact of an idealized
Lrandom
Cactual
Crandom
3.65
18.7
2.65
2.99
12.4
2.25
0.79
0.080
0.28
0.00027
0.005
0.05
.............................................................................................................................................................................
Film actors
Power grid
C. elegans
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Characteristic path length L and clustering coefficient C for three real networks, compared
to random graphs with the same number of vertices (n) and average number of edges per
vertex (k). (Actors: n 225;226, k 61. Power grid: n 4;941, k 2:67. C. elegans: n 282,
k 14.) The graphs are defined as follows. Two actors are joined by an edge if they have
acted in a film together. We restrict attention to the giant connected component16 of this
graph, which includes ,90% of all actors listed in the Internet Movie Database (available at
http://us.imdb.com), as of April 1997. For the power grid, vertices represent generators,
transformers and substations, and edges represent high-voltage transmission lines
between them. For C. elegans, an edge joins two neurons if they are connected by either
a synapse or a gap junction. We treat all edges as undirected and unweighted, and all
vertices as identical, recognizing that these are crude approximations. All three networks
show the small-world phenomenon: L ) Lrandom but C q Crandom .
Regular
Small-world
Random
C(p) / C(0)
0.8
0.6
0.4
0.2
p=0
p=1
L(p) / L(0)
0
0.0001
Increasing randomness
0.001
0.01
0.1
Figure 2 Characteristic path length L(p) and clustering coefficient C(p) for the
lattice and a random network, without altering the number of vertices or edges in
the graph. We start with a ring of n vertices, each connected to its k nearest
number of edges in the shortest path between two vertices, averaged over all
examples shown here, but much larger n and k are used in the rest of this Letter.)
that a vertex v has kv neighbours; then at most kv kv 2 1=2 edges can exist
We choose a vertex and the edge that connects it to its nearest neighbour in a
between them (this occurs when every neighbour of v is connected to every other
neighbour of v). Let Cv denote the fraction of these allowable edges that actually
uniformly at random over the entire ring, with duplicate edges forbidden; other-
exist. Define C as the average of Cv over all v. For friendship networks, these
wise we leave the edge in place. We repeat this process by moving clockwise
around the ring, considering each vertex in turn until one lap is completed. Next,
shortest chain connecting two people; Cv reflects the extent to which friends of v
are also friends of each other; and thus C measures the cliquishness of a typical
friendship circle. The data shown in the figure are averages over 20 random
and continue this process, circulating around the ring and proceeding outward to
realizations of the rewiring process described in Fig.1, and have been normalized
more distant neighbours after each lap, until each edge in the original lattice has
by the values L(0), C(0) for a regular lattice. All the graphs have n 1;000 vertices
been considered once. (As there are nk/2 edges in the entire graph, the rewiring
process stops after k/2 laps.) Three realizations of this process are shown, for
horizontal scale has been used to resolve the rapid drop in L(p), corresponding to
the onset of the small-world phenomenon. During this drop, C(p) remains almost
graph becomes increasingly disordered until for p 1, all edges are rewired
constant at its value for the regular lattice, indicating that the transition to a small
randomly. One of our main results is that for intermediate values of p, the graph is
a small-world network: highly clustered like a regular graph, yet with small
characteristic path length, like a random graph. (See Fig. 2.)
NATURE | VOL 393 | 4 JUNE 1998
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letters to nature
Two results emerge. First, the critical infectiousness rhalf, at which
the disease infects half the population, decreases rapidly for small p
(Fig. 3a). Second, for a disease that is sufficiently infectious to infect
the entire population regardless of its structure, the time T(p)
required for global infection resembles the L(p) curve (Fig. 3b).
Thus, infectious diseases are predicted to spread much more easily
and quickly in a small world; the alarming and less obvious point is
how few short cuts are needed to make the world small.
Our model differs in some significant ways from other network
models of disease spreading2024. All the models indicate that network structure influences the speed and extent of disease transmission, but our model illuminates the dynamics as an explicit function
of structure (Fig. 3), rather than for a few particular topologies, such
as random graphs, stars and chains2023. In the work closest to ours,
Kretschmar and Morris24 have shown that increases in the number
of concurrent partnerships can significantly accelerate the propagation of a sexually-transmitted disease that spreads along the edges of
a graph. All their graphs are disconnected because they fix the
average number of partners per person at k 1. An increase in the
number of concurrent partnerships causes faster spreading by
increasing the number of vertices in the graphs largest connected
component. In contrast, all our graphs are connected; hence the
predicted changes in the spreading dynamics are due to more subtle
structural features than changes in connectedness. Moreover,
0.35
0.3
half
0.25
0.2
0.15
0.0001
0.001
0.01
0.1
p
b
1
T(p) /T(0)
L(p) /L(0)
0.8
0.6
0.4
0.2
0
0.0001
0.001
0.01
0.1
p
Figure 3 Simulation results for a simple model of disease spreading. The
community structure is given by one realization of the family of randomly rewired
graphs used in Fig. 1. a, Critical infectiousness rhalf, at which the disease infects
half the population, decreases with p. b, The time T(p) required for a maximally
infectious disease (r 1) to spread throughout the entire population has essentially the same functional form as the characteristic path length L(p). Even if only a
few per cent of the edges in the original lattice are randomly rewired, the time to
global infection is nearly as short as for a random graph.
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